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An anonymous reader writes "A preliminary ruling from the International Trade Commission found that Apple did not violate four of Samsung's patents in the design of the iPhone. 'The patents in the complaint are related to 3G wireless technology, the format of data packets for high-speed transmission, and integrating functions like web surfing with mobile phone functions.' The complaint was filed by Samsung in 2011, and a final confirmation is due next January. Apple has similar claims against Samsung awaiting ITC judgment; the preliminary ruling is expected in mid-October."

I'd be curious to know the details regarding this technology because it seems to me like it covers very specific functionality. I mean, how does Apple win here but Samsung loses on something as ambiguous as design. It gets me wondering if judges and juries aren't approaching these cases with the preconceived notion that Apple is an "innovator" and couldn't possibly have used someone else's technology. It seems most people's sense of innovation is dictated by how nice industrial design looks and feels.

The problem with specific patents is they're specific. This is great for innovation, because it means that the patentor can't sue to stop competitors, but it means the patentor can't sue to stop competitors.

As for Apple's patent's validity, you don;t have to like that design patents exist, you don't have to agree with the patent office for issuing them, but you do have to acknowledge that they DO EXIST and they HAVE BEEN ISSUED, which means they can be violated.

Patentor is not meant to be able to stop competitors completely. He should only be able to stop competitors from using his genuine inventions, prompting them to seek other solutions. When a patent is overly broad, and, in effect, applies to the idea and all possible or practical implementations of it, it doesn't do anything to promote innovation, so all that remains is the anti-competitive aspect. In other words, the bad without the good.

Perhaps instead, it could be that there's an inherent bias in being on slashdot, and that apple's case had merit, while samsung's didn't?

I think slashdot is so overrun by Google fans and Android fans that the exact opposite seems to be the case. There are lots of cases recently where people have been basly insulted for nothing but the crime of uttering an opinion favoring Apple.

What's funny about Slashdot is that every single group hereabouts thinks that Slashdot is biased against them. Pick pretty much any topic and any side in it, and you can find a post where someone's complaining about how they're being downmodded etc because they're going against groupthink. For Google/Apple in particular, there are ample examples of people complaining about both pro-Google and pro-Apple bias.

What's funny about human nature is that every single group hereabouts thinks that everyone else is biased against them. Pick pretty much any topic and any side in it, and you can find a situation where someone's complaining about how they're being oppressed etc because they're going against groupthink. For Google/Apple in particular, there are ample examples of people complaining about both pro-Google and pro-Apple bias.

Perhaps the most appropriate response here is that, yes slashdot is, 'er' 'overrun' by computer geeks and nerds for whom 'Apple' have very little appeal being under specced over-marketed fashion statements. It's just the way computer geeks and nerds roll, get over it Apple marketdroid, overrun indeed, pfft. Of course blatant marketing biased 'opinions' will be always be targeted and not so much for the content of the opinion but to prevent the forum being flooded with those advertisements 'er' 'opinions' (

Perhaps the most appropriate response here is that, yes slashdot is, 'er' 'overrun' by computer geeks and nerds for whom 'Apple' have very little appeal

Which shows your inherent bias – I am a computer geek and nerd, but Apple holds great interest to me. They make the best (as far as I'm concerned) operating system for day to day use out there, they make high quality hardware that I'm willing to pay for, and they make devices that create an enormous market for my code to be sold to... Being a geek and a nerd does not imply hatred of apple, or that apple is not appealing.

It's just the way computer geeks and nerds roll, get over it Apple marketdroid

No, it's the way that some people who identify themselves as anti-establishment/a

Your poll is totally revealing of the sheep syndrome that somehow the majority must follow the minority because it is profitable for the minority, how about some disclosure when you have a vested interest. Sorry computer geeks and nerds tend not to be sheep and resist marketing pressures.

is totally revealing of the sheep syndrome that somehow the majority must follow the minority because it is profitable for the minority,

Can you explain the logic behind that assertion? No where in my post did I mention "following others" or "doing what the majority do", instead, only that a certain set of products happened to meet my needs, and the needs of other geeks. Secondly, that meeting our needs meant that we used them, and were interested in them. How is this symptomatic of "sheep syndrome" as you put it?

how about some disclosure when you have a vested interest.

My vested interest is that the products apple make are useful to me, and other geeks.

Sorry computer geeks and nerds tend not to be sheep and resist marketing pressures.

The ITC is inherently biased for US companies when it comes to bans. A ban can be rejected if it is deemed to hurt the US economy, so there is almost no way a foreign firm can ever ban a US company's products. In fact, I am not sure this has ever been carried out.

It could also be that ones dislike of Apple can make them just as deluded. I'm not saying one way or the other here, but you see a lot of posts on/. of people blindly bashing apple.. Blindly, I'm sure they don't think that's the case, but none the less, when you can't look at both sides objectively (and honestly, we never get _all_ the details), then of course it's going to seem outrageous.

I mean, how does Apple win here but Samsung loses on something as ambiguous as design.

Because some of the Apple design patents were not ambiguous and listed a sufficiently distinctive combination of features to make it clear that Samsung had copied the original iPhone design. Meanwhile, everybody seems to forget that the jury did chuck out the infringement claims in relation to the iPad and the iPhone 4.

The jury somehow concluded that a clunky phone with a keyboard violated Apple's design patent while the Galaxy Tab that is a dead ringer for the iPad and is almost indistinguishable from an at 20 feet away did not.

The jury's verdict didn't make much sense, they decided all the border line stuff in Apple's favor, and the stuff that Apple should win on unless the patents were declared invalid Samsung won. The jury decided to give Apple a little over a billion dollars and then spread the money over the claims.

With 600B+ market cap, whole market moves every time Apple moves. And with 600B+ market cap everyone expects Apple to grow even bigger. In a world driven by money (and only money) the only possible outcome will be Apple winning on all fronts, regardless of how much harm will it cause to everyone else (including consumers). Looking forward I expect judges mysteriously ruling in favor of Apple dubious patents and punishing competition every time regardless of their arguments. And even if tables turn in this debacle and Apple gets burned for the first time, I see Congress quickly passing a law "fixing it" - basically setting competition in an uphill battle against Apple or even outright graning monopoly on consumer electronics to Apple in some way.

Welcome to crony capitalism.

With 0.3-0.6% of GDP directly attributed to Apple and its basically unlimited funds for lobbying (bribing) politicians, your lovely (US) government cannot afford letting them lose their current market cap - it would harm whole market and trigger an avalanche of failing pension funds (lots of them also heavily invested into Apple itself) which in turn would bite government crooks in their lazy asses. Wall Street crooks also cannot afford Apple bubble popping exactly for the same reasons. Given that the biggest thread to Apple's profit is margin compression caused by maturing smartphone/tablet technology, I bet that both government and wall street will do everything they can to keep competition out of this space, heavily influencing courts, panels and commisions dealing with Apple's cases.

With 0.3-0.6% of GDP directly attributed to Apple and its basically unlimited funds for lobbying (bribing) politicians,

Except Apple spends 1/10th as much as Google does on lobbying and doesn't have a Political action committee to funnel money to politicians like how Google does.

your lovely (US) government cannot afford letting them lose their current market cap - it would harm whole market and trigger an avalanche of failing pension funds (lots of them also heavily invested into Apple itself) which in turn would bite government crooks in their lazy asses.

Because that really stopped antitrust cases against Microsoft in the 90's.

You know that not so long ago another company had a huge market cap, it was bigger than apples once adjusted for inflation. Their market cap is *lot* smaller now. You think this will turn out different? I don't think so.

Because they're stifling innovation and right now that's about the only way they can be stopped. I find it funny the people expect anything other than the company with the highest worth in world history to win these cases.

How are they stifling innovation if they force companies to do things in a different way - that is, to innovate? "Copy someone's success" hasn't been new for ages.

Don't fandroids keep harping about all the new stuff in Android that iPhone doesn't? How were those innovations stifled?

Indeed. Google worked around several iPhone patents on Android. For example, the home screen and launcher are specifically designed to avoid the iPhone patents that Samsung lost (because of TouchWiz). You unlock the phone, and..

*in his best prof farnsworth voice* Samsung and Apple finally settled their patent war in combat slaying each other. Now i've invented a new phone and we have to deliver the packets using this new ray I made that will transform the ship into radio waves.

In the US court, it was decided that the US company Apple did not violate any of Korean company Samsung's patents. In the Korean court, it was decided that the Korean company Samsung did not violate any of US company Apple's patents.

I wonder if someone had the idea to patent the three dots in menu items to inform users that another selection window will open instead of an action being performed. I mean, if "rubber banding" and "rounded corners" are all patentable, why not other obvious things?

...i went into a shop because i wanted to buy myself a new samsung galaxy s3 phone. when i unpacked it at home i realized that i got an iphone 5. they made it look like a samsung phone because these sell like warm rolls...
just kidding, i'm happy with the sgs2 running cm10...

It's harder with the MS posts, as there are three likely possibilites. There is the possibility of paid shill, troll, or in some circumstances, true fanboy. With Apple posts, I think the rate of paid shill is extremely low, if at all, but you could never tell the difference between paid shill and fanboy anyway. Same sort of problem with trolls... some people actually believe the same statements a troll would make. It's getting hard to tell who's who around here.

A good troll has several accounts set up just to troll, but he actually re-uses them, and each of those has a distinct and well-developed personality, complete with a posting history going back years, that makes him look genuine even after an in-depth check. This allows for truly masterful trolling, such as having those separate accounts actually argue between themselves, calling each other shills etc, lamenting about the sorry state of Slashdot groupthink moderation, and so on. If you pick your topics righ

Don't forget they stole Java from oracle. This is no surprise given the fact the founders are communists one of which coming from the heart of the USSR. They're savages that just don't know how to live in an respectable society.

Hardware patents perhaps, but personally I don't think software patents have helped in any way to further innovation. They are only a weapon.

So what you are saying is that a guy who pours significant amounts of time into developing an algorithm, making it space and time efficient, modelling it to resolve concurrency issues, etc... should not get patent protection and that you are 'entitled' to use his algorithm without compensating him for all his hard work? Creating algorithms is one example of a software development activity that is by far not always a trivial. I can see why granting a once-click-shopping patent or a slide-to-unlock patent is just plain dumb, I can also see why people are frustrated by big corporations patenting obvious stuff by the shipload and then using the expense of patent lawsuits as a tool to drive small competitors out of business. All of these are things that are wrong with the current system. However, I also fail to see why a guy developing hardware deserves patent protection but a guy developing software doesn't because that's one thing the patent system currently does right, which is giving inventors some protection against being ripped off by predators.

that's one thing the patent system currently does right, which is giving inventors some protection against being ripped off by predators.

No it doesn't. Unless your legal team and legal budget are bigger than who ever is ripping you off, the current system provides zero effective protection. It has always been a system by the big players (and their lawyers) for the big players.

that's one thing the patent system currently does right, which is giving inventors some protection against being ripped off by predators.

No it doesn't. Unless your legal team and legal budget are bigger than who ever is ripping you off, the current system provides zero effective protection. It has always been a system by the big players (and their lawyers) for the big players.

When the potential payout is huge - see the $1 billion Apple suit, or the half-billion i4i suit against Microsoft - you can find investors who are willing to help pay your legal budget in exchange for a share of the winnings.

That only works for business which don't actually produce anything (non-practising entities, aka trolls), where the cost of losing is approximately zero. If you actually make practical use of a patent you hold, and a larger company infringes on it, the chances are that your small company infringes on FAR more of their patents than they do yours.The end result would be a counter-suit, and eventually one more small business filing for bankruptcy.

That only works for business which don't actually produce anything (non-practising entities, aka trolls), where the cost of losing is approximately zero. If you actually make practical use of a patent you hold, and a larger company infringes on it, the chances are that your small company infringes on FAR more of their patents than they do yours.

Then you settle and take a cross-license. It's easy.

And FWIW, the $1billion (preliminary) Apple-Samsung judgement was about design patents and trade dress. Which have little to do with innovation, and everything to do with differentiation (see also: trademarks).

Trade dress is part of trademark law, but design patents are indeed patents, and require novelty and nonobviousness. Although there is significant overlap, they depart in that design patents do require innovation, while trade dress merely requires distinctiveness.

Additionally, only about 80% (by damages) of the Apple-Samsung suit was design patents or trade dress... The remainder was on utility patents.

Yes that is what everybody but yourself is saying. Algorithms, mathematical formulae, are not patentable for a very good reason. If we are not able to sell phones with rounded corners because a certain fruit has a monopoly then that sucks for consumers but the world goes on. If somebody is able to block research that will further the scientific developments of mankind then this is a bad thing.

Software patents are recognised as wrong in every single country in the world except for the US. Algorithms as wrong

Yes that is what everybody but yourself is saying. Algorithms, mathematical formulae, are not patentable for a very good reason. If we are not able to sell phones with rounded corners because a certain fruit has a monopoly then that sucks for consumers but the world goes on. If somebody is able to block research that will further the scientific developments of mankind then this is a bad thing.

Software patents are recognised as wrong in every single country in the world except for the US. Algorithms as wrong the whole world over.

Phillip.

Yeah, that's why Apple has won against Samsung over the "rubber-band" patent in how many countries now? Stop with that meme, it's clearly false.

So what you are saying is that a guy who pours significant amounts of time into developing an algorithm, making it space and time efficient, modelling it to resolve concurrency issues, etc... should not get patent protection and that you are 'entitled' to use his algorithm without compensating him for all his hard work?

As long as you implement your own version of that algorithm, yes. Software is protected by copyright, and that is enough. Just like it is enough for books and music.

"So what you are saying is that a guy who pours significant amounts of time into developing an algorithm, making it space and time efficient, modelling it to resolve concurrency issues, etc... should not get patent protection and that you are 'entitled' to use his algorithm without compensating him for all his hard work? "

There is a whole branch existing around that same concept of not getting money for algorithm you think of : that's called mathematic. You might have heard of it. Try patenting any mathema

So what you are saying is that a guy who pours significant amounts of time into developing an algorithm, making it space and time efficient, modelling it to resolve concurrency issues, etc... should not get patent protection and that you are 'entitled' to use his algorithm without compensating him for all his hard work?

What "guy" are you talking about? Who does that? Software patents take years to acquire and cost $8000-$10,000 a piece. I've written many brilliant methods/functions/apps in various languages. I've been writing software for years. You know how many patents I have? Zero.

You know how many people will use code if it is patent encumbered? Again, zero. Nobody wants that shit. It's the kiss of death. Hell, most companies won't even touch code under the GPL because it isn't "free" enough. They only want BSD, MIT,

You know how many people will use code if it is patent encumbered? Again, zero. Nobody wants that shit. It's the kiss of death. Hell, most companies won't even touch code under the GPL because it isn't "free" enough. They only want BSD, MIT, or Apache license so they can take everything, redistribute it as their own, and never give anything back. Just like Apple.

Bwahahaha. Oh, you actually believe nobody is using MP3s and that Apple has never sold an iPhone.

"So what you are saying is that a guy who pours significant amounts of time into developing an algorithm, making it space and time efficient, modelling it to resolve concurrency issues, etc... should not get patent protection"

We can stop right here and answer: Correct. No patent protection.

Ok, I'll bite. People keep telling me that but nobody ever explains WHY, they just repeat the worn out old line that 'software patents should be abolished' which they regard as a self evident truth, kind of like religious fundamentalists who think quoting scripture is an unassailable counter to any argument. WHY are algorithms so obviously un-patentable? Explain yourself...

What if I develop the same algorithm at the same time, also spending a lot of ressources and significant amount of time, but I find it after you. Why should I not being compensated for my work ? Or worse, why sould I pay you for using what I develop ?

I don't personally support the current patent system, but the answer to your question is blindingly obvious: because if you can't put restrictions on the use of the algorithm, your competitors are going to come along, and use it themselves without either incurring the R&D cost or compensating your for it. Thus they're able to offer competing products at a lower cost, making computer science R&D a counter-productive strategy to running a competitive business (i.e. stifling innovation). Patents are su

I agree there should be software patents, but not on the algorithm or process itself but on the code. That is, the specific code that somebody when into a hard time to develop should be allowed to get a patent. However, I can develop a similar functionality with another completely different process and/or language, it should not be considered a patent violation.
The issue here is allowing a company to patent the process itself. It is absurd. In this case, a swipe to unlock or a pinch-zoom funcionality. It

We have patent laws to reward people and firms for investing time and money in developing new products, and also to reward them for making their discoveries public rather than trying to retain them as trade secrets. It is hard to see what makes software different. You can certainly get a patent for inventing a product that is assembled or built using standard components, which anybody could use to create a similar product (once they have the idea). Like hardware, software may be novel or not, obvious or not

"So what you are saying is that a guy who pours significant amounts of time into developing an algorithm, making it space and time efficient, modelling it to resolve concurrency issues, etc... should not get patent protection"

We can stop right here and answer: Correct. No patent protection.

And no more GPL "violations" either. Finally software will be truly free.

License for the technology doesn't come automatically when purchasing the chips. Infineon might obtain a license to manufacture, but the user of the chip (in this case Apple) must then obtain a license to use it.

Not if the patent covers the manufacture that Apple doesn't do - in that case it needs to be baked into the price if they want it covered. It's not like you need to pay a separate royalty to the author when you buy a book, either...